FORM
138
FORM
a criticism, not of the content of thought, but of its
essence. It is an endeavour to examine not the " facta
of reason, but reason itself. ... ".
The development of the philosophical doctrine of form may be said to have begun with Aristotle. It provided a something fixed and immutable amidst what appears to be involved in a series of perpetual changes, thus obviating the difficulty of the Heracli- tean position as to the validity of knowledge. The wdvTa xwpfi' destroys the possibility of a true knowl- edge of things as they are. Thus Aristotle may be looked upon as the one above all others who laid a solid base for any true system of epistemology. Like Plato, he saw the radical scepticism implied in an as- sertion of unending change. But imlike the doctrine of the former, providing unalterable but separated ideas as the ideal counterpart of sensible things, that of Aristotle, by its distinction of matter and form, makes it possible to abstract the unalterable and eter- nal from its concrete and mutable manifestation in in- dividuals. Aristotle, however, identifies the form with the essence ; and this because the substance is what it is (essentially) by reason of the substantial form. It would be a mistake, none the less, to suppose that his doctrine leaves no room for a distinction between the two. Indeed Orote clearly shows that "the Aristo- telean analysis thus brings out, in regard to each in- dividual substance (or hoc ah'quid, to use his phrase), a triple point of view: (1) the form; (2) the matter; (3) the compound or aggregate of the two — in other words the inseparable Ens which carries us out of the domain of logic or abstraction into that of the concrete or reality" (Grote, "Aristotle", ed. Bain and Robertson, II, 182). The theory is a fundamental one in Aris- totle's "Philosophia Prima", presenting, as it does, a phase, and that perhaps the most important, of the distinction between the potential and the actual. It is no less fundamental to the philosophical and theo- logical system of St. Thomas Aquinas which is represen- tative of the Christian School. Substantial form is an act, the principle of activity, and by it things actually e.xist (Summa I, Q. Ixvi) as they are. Moreover it is one. Thus man exists as man in virtue of his sub- stantial form, the soul.
That the rational soul is the unique form of the body is of faith (Council of Vienne; V Lateran; Brief of Pius IX, 15 June, 1857). Man is learned or healthjf in virtue of the accidental (qualifying) forms of learning or health that " inhere " in him. These, without detri- ment to his humanity, may be present or absent. Both kinds of form, it may be noted, though they specify their resultant essences, or quasi-essences, are individ- uated by the quantified matter in the one case, and the suliject of inhesion in the other. Thus, while the acci- dental or substantial corporeal form falls back into mere potentiality when it does not actuate its subject, the incorporeal subsistent form of man, though con- tinuing to exist when separated from the body, retains its habitude, or relationship, to the matter by which it was individuated. Thisdoctrine is usual in the School, but it is interesting to observe that Scotus taught, in distinction to St. Thomas's doctrine of one substantial form, a plurality of form in individuals. Thus, e. g., while according to Acjuinas man is all that he is sub- stantially (corporeal, animal, rational, Socrates) in virtue of his one soul, according to Scotus each deter- mination (generic or specific) superadds a form. In this way, man would be corporeal in virtue of a cor- poreal form, animal in virtue of a superadded animal form, etc., until he l)ecame Socrates, in virtue of the ultimate personid fonii (xorriilcilns). Occam also dis- tinguislu'd lietwccM a rational and a sensitive soul in man, and tauglit Ihal llic latlrr was corruptible. The terniinciloiiy of tlie Scliolaslic doctrine of form is em- ployed by till- Cliurcli in dogmatic clelinitions, such as that i)f till' Council of Vicnnc cited ab(jve, and in her teaching with regard to the sacraments. Thus, while
the matter of the sacrament of baptism, for example,
is water; the sacramental form consists of the words
ego te baptizo, etc., pronounced by the minister as he
baptizes. The same terminology is adopted in the ex-
position of moral theology, as in the distinction of
formal and material sin.
The principal alternative systems professing to give an account of corporeal substances are those of Des- cartes, Locke, Mill and Bain, the scientists (Atomists, etc.). Descartes places the essence of bodies in exten- sion in three dimensions, thus identifying quantified substance with quantity and in no way accounting for substantial differences. Each substance possesses a "pre-eminent attribute, which constitutes its nature and essence and to which all others relate; thus exten- sion", etc. To this Locke adds the qualities of the substance, making its essence consist of its primary qualities, or properties (extension, figure and mobility, divisibility and activity). Locke's doctrine, which seems to be the opinion of many contemporary men of science, labours under the same grave inconvenience as that of Descartes, as, by a hysteron-proteron, it ac- counts for the nature of a given substance by its acci- dents. Mill and Bain, considering substance from a psychological rather than an ontological viewpoint, define it by its relation to sense perception as an ex- ternal and permanent possibility of our sensations. This view is not unlike that just alluded to, inasmuch as it expresses not the essence of bodies but at most their activity as permanently capable of evoking sen- sations in us. Akin to this is the doctrine of positiv- ism, explaining the nature of "matter" as a series of sensations.
The topic of form is, as has been seen, closely connected with epistemology. As was said, a weapon for the defeat of scepticism and Hcracliteamsm was provided by Aristotle in his doctrine of forms and essences; Aquinas, also, would have our knowl- edge to be of the eternal essences, though derived by way of contemplation of contingent individuals. Kant, on the other hand, denies the possibility of such knowledge of the Thing-in-itself , and , establishing a set of mental forms (see above) into which our experience of concrete beings may be fitted, inaugurates an epis- temology of the phenomenal. Hegel begins with the idea of pure being, identical, because of its entire lack of content, with nothing; and thence evolves, on idealistic lines, his theory of knowledge. The "real- ism " of Herbart is an attempt to reconcile the contra- dictions that arise in the formal conceptions presented in experience. His epistemological principle is, there- fore, a critical and methodical transformation of such conceptions, issuing in the position that a multiplicity of simple, real essences exists, each possessing a single simple quality. Several of the modern systems (Prag- matism, Moclernism, etc.), based directly and indi- rectly upon the teaching of Kant, assert a life-value or work-value to truth, inculcating an extreme relativity of knowledge and tending to pure subjectivism and solipsism. The scholastic theory of form is not that generally adopted by modern scientists, though it may be noticed that it is not directly impugned by any scientific system. From Bacon on, empirical science has been progressive; and there is reason to believe that the theoretic science of to-day is in a state of transition in its attitude with regard to the constitu- tion of " matter" (substance). The atomic and molec- ular theories, principally on account of the discovery of the radio-active substances and their properties, are being moflified or abandoned (at any rate in so far as they were held to represent the real constitution of matter) in favour of the electronic, a theory not unlike that of the Jesuit Boscovich. In any case the former did not go farther than to provide a theoretic account of the construction of "matter", leaving the ultimate constitution of substance unexplained. At (his point the theory of hylomorphism and the doctrine of sub-
